TRUMP ACES COGNITIVE CHECK-UP

He will remain fit for duration of presidency, says physician

WASHINGTON

DONALD Trump is expected to remain physically fit for the duration of his presidency and has “no cognitive issues whatsoever”, according to full results from his first medical examination released on Tuesday.

Trump’s critics have openly questioned his mental health, and an explosive book on his presidency published this month described aides as having doubts about his fitness for office.

“Data indicates that the president is healthy and will remain so for the duration of his presidency,” White House physician Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson told a White House briefing following last week’s physical, which determined Trump, 71, to be in “excellent” health.

“He has incredible genes and that is the way God made him.”

Jackson said Trump, who faced speculation about his mental fitness, requested a cognitive test in which he performed “exceedingly well”.

“I think he saw doing the physical as an opportunity to put some of that to rest. I think he was not the least bit concerned that he had anything to hide.”

He said the screening was carried out using a test called the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, on which Trump scored 30/30.

He gave the president’s vital statistics as follows: height 190m, weight 108kg, resting heart rate 68, blood pressure 122/74.

Trump will make changes to his diet and exercise in an effort to lose weight.

Heart rate, blood pressure and cardiac output were normal in response to exercise, while motor function and sensory system were also normal, Jackson said of Friday’s exam at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre.

“He has incredible cardiac fitness at this point in his life, and I think a large part of that is due to the fact he has had a life of abstinence from tobacco and alcohol,” Jackson said.

Long-running questions about Trump’s fitness for office were given new fuel by Michael Wolff ’s White House expose, in which staff expressed concern about Trump repeating himself.

Trump described the book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, as “full of lies”, and described himself as “a very stable genius”. AFP